


The Spy in the Spire

by Griselda_Gimpel



Series: Queen & Knight [5]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Anxiety, Canonical Character Death, Espionage, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Pre-New 52
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-22 17:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30041859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griselda_Gimpel/pseuds/Griselda_Gimpel
Summary: While doing undercover work for Amanda Waller, Count Werner Vertigo finds himself unable to check in. Can he get intel back to Waller before the Society discovers he's got a covert agenda?Set shortly before Infinite Crisis.Updates weekly.
Series: Queen & Knight [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169015





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: this fan fic is intertwined with canon events involving the supervillain known as Captain Nazi. He mostly just exist in this fic because he does in canon, but I wanted to throw in a content warning because, well, he's Captain Nazi.

Count Werner Vertigo pushed back his chair from the table at the Injustice Society Headquarters. The meeting with the full team had just ended, and the television that had been used for the video conference had been turned off. Only Vertigo, Tigress, and Icicle were still in the room, the other members of the team having already left.

“The Society, huh?” Icicle remarked. They’d gotten the sales pitch from Merlyn. Afterward, they’d taken a vote. It had been unanimous. The Injustice Society would be joining the Society.

“Maybe not you,” Tigress responded. “I expect you to be thrown out in a week.”

“Hey!”

“I’m going to take a walk,” Vertigo said.

“Hm?” Tigress asked.

Vertigo smiled easily at her. “It’s a lot to take in. I’m excited. A walk around the block will burn off some of that energy.” He cocked an eyebrow at Tigress. “Unless you have a better idea?”

“Ew, no,” Tigress said. “I’d rather screw Ice boy here.”

“Really?” Icicle asked, hope clear in his voice.

“Ugh. I’m going somewhere else,” Tigress said. “Enjoy your walk.”

“Don’t get arrested,” Icicle added.

“I will endeavor not to,” Vertigo answered. There really was a risk of him being arrested if he were recognized, but when he wore plainclothes, he was seldom recognized. Despite what royalty liked to claim, blue blood didn’t imbue one with a special sparkle. In slacks and a button down, Vertigo looked like any unremarkable businessman taking a stroll around the city.

The current headquarters of the Injustice Society – soon to be a base for the Society, he supposed – was a floor of a red brick apartment building in the city. Lairs on craggy mountain tops and private islands had been considered, but they were both too remote to be very convenient for crime. Bedrooms had been allocated, cooking duties had been assigned, and one of the dining rooms had been set up as a conference room that could host video conferences.

They paid their rent on-time and in cash every month, and they were careful not to be caught wearing costumes in the halls. If this was an expense, it went a long way to preventing the police from storming their headquarters. Their landlady thought – as Vertigo had realized soon after they had set up shop – that the entire Injustice Society was a polyamorous commune, but she was the sort that cared only that the rent was paid and that no one smoked in doors.

Vertigo exited the apartment he was in, locked the door behind him, and then headed down the stairs. He didn’t go right to his destination but walked in a parallel path to that, keeping an ear out to determine if he was being followed. Looking around wildly would make him seem suspicious if he were being trailed, so instead he found an excuse to stop periodically and examine a newspaper headline, appreciate a cloud, or check his watch. When he did that, he listened to the patter of footsteps behind him to discern if there was anyone always stopping when he stopped.

Once he was confident that he wasn’t being followed, he turned and doubled back to his actual destination: a cell phone store. Inside, he purchased a prepaid phone using cash and then left. Electronic transfers, no matter how secure they purported to be, were traceable. Cash was not.

He walked another block and a half and then turned down a dead-end alleyway between two buildings. Once confident that no one was watching, he took to the air, flying to the top of one of the buildings. His feet alighted on the rooftop, and he leaned against a chimney to place his phone call.

Amanda Waller picked up on the second ring. “Amanda Waller. Who’s calling?”

“It’s Honeybee,” Vertigo answered. That was the codename that Waller had assigned him for his deep cover work in the Injustice Society. He’d had other suggestions, but he’d been overruled. As Waller had explained – before eventually telling him that his codename wasn’t up for discussion so stop whining – a good codename shouldn’t be something that someone could deduce his identity from. There was always the possibility that their phone conversation could be overheard. For his own protection and for the protection of Waller’s career, the less identifying information that could be gleamed from the call, the better.

“What do you have for me?” Waller asked.

“The Injustice Society is joining the Society. Have you heard of that?”

“No. What can you tell me?”

“The invitation came from Merlyn. He’s an assassin who’s tangled with Green Arrow before.”

“Floyd’s friend. I’m familiar with him.”

“He said that ‘everybody’ is going to be a member. It’s going to be a big, multinational crime syndicate of supervillains working together.”

“Do you know who’s running it?”

“Luthor, according to Merlyn.”

“Good work, Honeybee. See what you can find out.”

Waller hung up, and Vertigo followed suit. Holding the phone in one hand, he touched his temple with his other hand and activated his balance disruptor. In addition to offsetting his own balance issues, it could be used to inhibit the internal equilibrium of others. It also played havoc with the 1’s and 0’s inside of any electronic device. A lone single event upset was manageable, but a whole burst of them would turn any data stored inside the phone into incomprehensible garbage. Once he was finished, he returned to the ground and chucked the burner phone into the first trashcan he passed.

After that, he continued his walk at a casual pace, in case any of the other members of the Injustice Society came looking for him. Or, he supposed, if any of the members of the Society did. He wasn’t entirely convinced that the Society was going to live up to everything Merlyn claimed it was going to be. Certainly, supervillain groups like the Injustice Society had long been a thing, and he knew that the Flash’s enemies routinely cooperated with each other but getting _every_ supervillain on board was going to pose quite the challenge. Not that he was likely to have to worry about that. Chances were that what would happen where he was concerned was that he’d do nothing more than observe and pass on information to Waller, who’d see that it got into the hands of whatever superhero team was going to be tasked with eventually breaking up the Society.


	2. Chapter 2

“Welcome to LexCorp!” the cheery secretary at the front desk greeted as Vertigo, Tigress, and Icicle entered. The other members of the Injustice Society had already been to the headquarters before lunch. Now the remaining three were there as scheduled. They’d been split up to avoid attracting suspicion. For the same reason, they were all wearing plainclothes.

“Luthor’s going all out with this, huh?” Icicle remarked as the secretary checked them in one by one under their real names in her computer and handed them badges.

_Interesting choice, that_ , Vertigo thought. Luthor would have a record on their movements within the building, giving him a fair amount of oversight over the rank-and-file members of the Society. Likely, however, there would be a mechanism to purge the data if LexCorp’s records were ever subpoenaed. Even then, there might be some hesitation to do that, on account of Lex Luthor being the former president of the United States. Attorney Generals didn’t like to look like they had an axe to grind with political opponents.

“You just swipe the badge against the pad by the door and it will unlock,” the secretary explained. “For security purposes, we ask that you not ‘hold the door’ for anyone after you. You might just think you’re being polite, but you never know who might be letting into the building.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Tigress quip wryly.

“Now if you’ll just sign these documents,” the secretary said. She set three stacks of papers on the counter in front of her desk.

“There’s paperwork?” Icicle groaned.

Vertigo took the rightmost stack of papers and leaned in close. “And perhaps I could get your number-“ He glanced at her nameplate. “-Ms Apple.”

“I’m afraid that’s against company policy,” Apple told him firmly. “Now, just sign where it says ‘signature’ and initial where it says ‘initial’.”

Vertigo pulled back and obediently began filling out the paperwork, trying not to look triumphant. As he’d leaned forward to ‘flirt’ with the secretary, he’d plugged a USB flash drive into her computer. Vertigo was rather handy with circuits and wires – he’d designed and built his balance disruptor, after all – but the flash drive had been provided to him by Oracle. There was a program on it that would automatically copy files from any computer it was plugged into. Which meant that the complete roster of the Society that had been checked in at LexCorp was about to be his.

He took his time filling out the paperwork to give the flash drive time to finish copying the files. He’d noted the security cameras when he’d first walked in, and he had his body positioned to block their view of the flask drive. As he handed the finished stack of paperwork to the secretary with his left hand, he retrieved the flash drive with his right hand and slipped it into his pocket. Now he just had to make an excuse to get the flash drive to a dead drop location, and Waller would soon have the information. 

Merlyn and a woman who introduced herself as Knockout met them then. After introductions had been made, the trio was led to the elevators. It dinged at the fifth floor, and Knockout gestured Icicle and Tigress to follow her. Vertigo went to step out, as well, but Merlyn (who hadn’t moved) put his arm out in front of Vertigo.

“Huh? He’s not coming with us?” Icicle asked, glancing back.

“He’s going to be in a different division,” Merlyn explained.

“But I wanted to go with the beautiful lady,” Vertigo protested.

“No can do,” Knockout said, and the elevator doors shut again. Merlyn pushed the button for the seventeenth floor, and the elevator began to rise again. Vertigo’s heart rate quickened as it did so, for all his efforts to remain calm.

When the elevator opened again, Vertigo followed Merlyn down a hall and into a lab. Computers sat on counters all around the room, and in the center there was a large table with electronics strewn across it. Merlyn took a seat and Vertigo did the same.

“You’re good with gadgets and gizmos, right?”

Vertigo nodded. “Yes, I designed my own balance disruptor.”

“Perfect. The trash trove you see before you are bits and pieces of tech that various Society members have broken or damaged during their outings. You’re being assigned to the repair team.”

“I see,” Vertigo said. He picked up the first broken item on the table and began to examine it critically.

“That’s part of Captain Cold’s freeze gun,” Merlyn offered.

Vertigo flipped it over. “Ah, looks like it’s just a lose wire. The circuit isn’t grounded. You know, Captain Cold could have repaired this.”

“But that would have taken time. It’s more efficient to have one team handle all of the repairs. It’s one of the benefits of the Society.”

“Makes sense.”

“You ever meet Captain Cold?” Merlyn asked. His tone was casual, but it didn’t matter. Vertigo was already more on edge than he would have liked to be, and he was constantly aware of the flash drive in his pocket.

Vertigo shook his head. “I don’t believe so.”

“But you were both on the Suicide Squad?”

“If he was on the Squad, it wasn’t at the same time as me.”

“Huh. That’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“It’s just, you did a lot of missions for the Squad, right?”

Vertigo shrugged. “Lots of Society members were on the Squad. Captain Cold, for instance. Just not at the same time as me.”

“Not at the same time as you, and not like you, though,” Merlyn said, and he was no longer giving any pretense of engaging in gadget repair. Vertigo set down the freeze gun component. It wasn’t wise to argue and handle a gun at the same time.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“Captain Cold and the rest, they do a mission or two to get out from underneath Uncle Sam’s thumb. But you, you were on the team a long time.”

“The money was good,” Vertigo said, trying to make it sound casual.

“Tell me, when was the last time you spoke with Amanda Waller?”

“The Wall? It’s been ages. Not since the start of the Luthor Administration. If you have questions about her, why not ask him?”

“She didn’t keep in touch?”

“Please. She became a big shot Secretary and forgot all about us little people.”

“Little people? I thought you were a Count-”

“Of a country of ash!” Vertigo shouted. The anger had come upon him suddenly and it fled just as quickly as he automatically began counting his breathing as his therapist had taught him. Slow breath in on the count of five, hold for the count of five, and the exhale on the count of five. In, pause, out. Repeat until calm.

“Forgive me,” Merlyn said. “I did not mean to be insensitive. Let’s get back to work. There’s a cafeteria on the twenty-fifth floor and then at ten floor intervals after that. Just show them your badge. There are quarters for you on the two hundred and ninety-eighth floor. Someone is fetching your belongings from the Injustice Society headquarters as we speak.”

“Thank you,” Vertigo said. He willed his hands not to shake as they continued their work. When they had finished, Merlyn took Vertigo to the dining hall. He had no appetite, but he forced himself to eat, anyway. He’d been starving too many times before not to. When he had finished, Merlyn led him to his room up in the spire of LexCorp tower and left him there. As promised, his meager belongings had been brought there.

Vertigo rummaged in his bag until he found a roll of tape and slipped it into his bathroom bag. With that in hand, he went into the bathroom. There, he used his balance disruptor in every direction he could think of. If there were security cameras in the bathroom, they wouldn’t be functioning in the future. If Merlyn or anyone else questioned that, he could claim outrage at the lack of privacy. That would be expected and so wouldn’t attract too much suspicion.

Once he knew he was no longer being watched, he stripped naked. Using the tape, he taped the flash disk to the inside of his upper thigh, positioning it so that it wouldn’t be seen even if he were wearing spandex. The case of the flash disk was waterproof, and the tape he was using was designed to be water resistance. An intense search would discover it, but if they chose to rifle through his belongings or search his pockets, it would be secure. Depending on how long before he could deliver it, he might have to redo the tape, and he would have to be careful not to attract any further suspicion.

As he washed up, he considered his options. He suspected that his badge wouldn’t open any doors that led to exits, but he didn’t want to test that theory overmuch. It would be suspicious if he never tried to leave, but if he seemed too eager to get out of the building, that would be worse. He could probably break a window with a chair and fly out, but to do so would be to completely blow his cover. He might get away, but he did not care to have the entire Society out for his blood. Better to cool his heels and play along. Eventually, they would trust him enough to let him slip away with his cover intact.


End file.
